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438 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
P-ISSN 2355-2794 E-ISSN 2461-0275
Errors in Writing Made by Malaysian
Rural Primary School Pupils
Halipah Harun*1
Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan Abdullah2
1Sekolah Kebangsaan Taiping, Jalan Taming Sari, Perak 34000, MALAYSIA
2School of Educational Studies, University of Science Malaysia, Gelugor,
Penang 11800, MALAYSIA
Abstract
This study is to identify errors made by rural primary school pupils in writing and
to get information about the causes or sources of errors that lead to pupils’
writing problems. The conceptual framework concerns four types of errors committed by rural primary school pupils in writing, namely tense, spelling, and
vocabulary. The study is based on Corder’s (1971) Error Analysis (EA) and
Richards’ (1974) Causes or Sources of Errors as its theoretical framework. It was
conducted at two rural schools with 44 pupils of Primary 5, aged 11, as the
research sample. A written task was taken as the study instrument in order to answer two research questions. This study has revealed that tense is the most
frequent error committed by the pupils, followed by punctuation, vocabulary, and spelling. Moreover, the pupils’ errors are caused by both interlingual and
intralingual transfer. It is concerned with rural primary school settings in Kerian
where the majority of the pupils use the Malay language as their medium of
instruction. In addition, this study has its implication for English Language
Education in Malaysia, in which it affects rural pupils’ performance especially in Primary School Achievement Test also known as Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah
Rendah (UPSR) in English Writing paper. Some adjustments in the education system and the total involvement from education departments are meant to better
reduce the number of low performers, especially in English writing to enhance
the level of English proficiency in rural schools.
Keywords: Causes of errors, interlingual and interlingual transfer, rural primary
school pupils.
* Corresponding author, email: halipaharun@yahoo.com
Citation in APA style: Harun, H., & Abdullah, M. K. K. (2020). Errors in writing made by Malaysian
rural primary school pupils. Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456.
Received June 17, 2020; Revised August 18, 2020; Accepted August 21, 2020
http://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v7i2.17009
©Syiah Kuala University. All rights reserved.
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 439
1. INTRODUCTION
English language teaching has started in an era where there was the
implementation of English and Malay medium schools. English subject was reachable
to quite a number of populations which mainly students who went to English medium
schools. However, most Malay children were sent off to Malay medium schools
because the majority of primary and secondary schools were Malay medium national
public schools (Hall, 2015). Students in Malay medium schools were taught English
but was very minimal.
English as a subject was at its declining standard at Malay medium schools as
most children did not receive adequate education of the language. The negligence of
English in Malay medium schools especially in communication had a big impact on
students when they entered a tertiary level of education (Musa et al. 2012). On the
other hand, the English medium school pupils were fluent in the language that brought
about the high standard of English as it was particularly practised daily as a medium
of communication.
According to Mustapha (1998, cited in Ien et al. 2017), Malaysian students are
claimed to be non-active learners. Referring specifically to rural students, they become
dependent learners as a result of “limited facilities and the unconducive environment
in the rural area” (Ien et al. 2017, p. 2). Besides, students who are coming from rural
areas and the low socio-economy background will have difficulty in writing as they
rarely speak English in their daily communication, and their access to English is
limited (Madut & Yunus, 2017). The command of the English language is still poor
among rural learners as claimed by Jusun and Yunus (2017) in Lubok Antu, a rural
area in Sarawak. English is regarded as an examination subject. As such, English
learners in rural Lubok Antu become dependent on their teachers in most aspects
especially revision and information.
In this regard, the Ministry of Education has stated in the Malaysian Education
Blueprint 2013-2025 that the ultimate aim of English literacy is to get a minimum pass
of 70% with a minimum credit (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2013). This is a target
that is possible to achieve for students who sit for SPM or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia
(Malaysian Education Certificate), PT3 or Pentaksiran Tingaktan 3 (Form 3
Assessment), and UPSR or Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (the Primary
Achievement Test). English is the subject which has always been critical for students
to pass especially for those who live in rural areas as claimed by Madut and Yunus
(2017). The English proficiency level of secondary students is much lower. It is stated
that only 28 percent of students got a minimum credit in the 2011 Malaysian Certificate
of Education or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) English Paper as compared to
Cambridge 1119 paper (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2013, p. 32).
This study is to investigate the writing difficulty that the pupils are facing after
learning English for six years (Musa et al., 2012). This study is conducted also to
identify the sources of writing errors so that it may help teachers to find solutions to
the problem. Ien et al. (2017) stresses on the teaching methods applied by the teachers,
the kinds of responses acknowledged by students from books and instructors and the
types of writing activities conducted in the classrooms may provide some room for
pupils’ writing improvement. In addition, it is a teacher’s role to teach the proper use
of grammar and correct language when teaching writing. This is expected to help the
pupils improve in their writing skill.
440 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
It is also significant to highlight their errors in writing as the research gap
because there is a need to discover the factors as the prime cause of the errors made in
rural primary school settings. Justifying the factors in this study may generate ideas to
teachers on the causes or sources of errors that lead to the pupils’ difficulties in writing.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This research underpins the theory of second language acquisition (SLA) and
Corder’s (1971) Error Analysis and Richards’ (1974) Causes of Errors as its
conceptual framework.
2.1 The Theory of Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
2.1.1 Chomsky’s view on language learners
Chomsky’s revolution in linguistics has an extensive effect on language learning
theory. He rejects the idea that learning a language is a process of habit formation as
he believes in its mental cognitive process. In his review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal
Behavior, Chomsky (1959) states that humans adapting to a new language learning,
especially language acquisition, could not be clarified by just beginning off with a
tabula rasa perspective. Chomsky asserts that individuals must have a specific sort of
natural limit, which controls the acquisition of language. His theory revolves around
the mental representation of language acquisition which is not innate but is based on a
learner’s experience.
A second language learner learns a language to convey meaning through
speaking and also through writing. The process of writing is similar to Chomsky’s
view on human learning a new language which involves mental cognitive processes in
order to compose a written product. If the learner uses phoneme; a sound which is
traditionally applied to differentiate meanings in a certain language, the phoneme in
the written language is somewhat different. In writing, students are aware that the
sound of /θ/ may refer to /th/ sound. It sometimes cannot be noticed by the hearer if
the word ‘tree’ or ‘three’ is spoken by the non-native speaker but writing solely
depends on what the reader ‘sees’ not ‘hears’ and therefore it is important for the writer
to be precise in his or her written form (Cook, 2001, p. 47) as well as his cognition of
words to get the right meaning.
In relation to this, a learner needs Universal Grammar, introduced by Chomsky,
as well as proof about a specific language; he/she needs to know sentences of English
to realise how to fix the boundary for the request for Verb, Subject, and Object not
only in a spoken language but also in a written one. Chomsky (1980) shows carefully
how rules in a language are recognised under Universal Grammar and by which
specific boundaries are set for a learner to follow.
2.1.2 Ellis’ learners’ language acquisition
Ellis (1994) provides a source of information on how language acquisition
occurs within a language learner’s learning circle. Four aspects have to be taken into
consideration, as the followings:
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 441
a) Errors
The presence of errors indicates evidence of transfer and creative construction of
first language structures in relation to the second language structures.
b) Acquisition orders and developmental sequences
There should be a fixed order and the acquisition of the first language grammar that
occurs in stages.
c) Variability
Learners make use of their limited linguistic knowledge to suit different functional
situations.
d) Pragmatic features
Learners learn to perform language functions appropriately.
2.1.3 Corder’s significance of learners’ errors and Error Analysis (EA)
Corder (1971) believes in children’s potential in language development by
making errors. He strongly resists the word ‘mistakes’ in which both errors and
mistakes are different in learning a language. The term ‘errors’ is significant in three
different ways. The teacher is the first person who recognizes errors done by the second
language learner and tells him or her what he or she should do with the errors made.
Secondly, it provides valid evidence of how a language is learned or acquired to the
researcher regarding approaches and techniques. The third, which is the most
important, is to the learners themselves. Learners of the second language consider the
errors they are making as a tool they use in order to go through the process of learning.
Corder claims that learners employ the strategy of making errors to acquire the first
and second languages.
Corder (1971) has established Error Analysis (EA). It emphasizes the
significance of errors in L2 learners’ interlanguage system (Brown, 1980). New
language rules have been created to make a new language system which is different
from the target and second language systems (Brudhiprabha, 1972). Any errors made
show learners’ learning stages and their development of the target language. The
learner’s errors offer the idea of a language that is systematic at the time he is using it
(i.e. has learned). Errors are significant in three separate ways, as the followings:
a) to the teacher
A learner has made progress with the system he is using and, thus, what remains
for him to learn.
b) to the researcher
How language is acquired, and what strategies the learner is applying in the
language while learning.
c) to the learner himself
Errors are regarded as a tool to test a learner’s assumptions about the nature of the
language he is learning.
In addition, Gass (2013) has proposed a few steps to analyse grammatical errors
made by the second language learners as the followings:
1. Collect data from a sample of learner language. It is typically done with written
data.
2. Identify errors. What are the errors? The incorrect sequence of tenses, wrong verb
form, singular verb form with plural subjects?
3. Classify errors. Is it an error of agreement?
442 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
4. Quantify errors. How many errors of agreement occur?
5. Analyse sources of errors. This refers to interlingual and intralingual errors,
discussed below.
6. Remediate. Based on the kind of frequency of an error type, pedagogical
intervention is conducted.
2.1.4 Richard’s causes of error
The root of learners’ errors has been studied by many theorists, and they have
presented causes or sources of errors as the followings:
a) Interlingual errors
The first errors known as interlingual errors are related to the native language.
Corder (1971) has mentioned that interlingual errors arise as a result of the native
speakers’ practices namely patterns, systems, or rules, obstruct them from obtaining
the patterns and rules of the language they learn after their mother tongue. First
language interference is the undesirable transfer of the first language upon the
learners’ target language performance.
b) Intralingual errors
Intralingual errors are errors within the learned language, free from the influence of
the native language. The errors made by the learners do not imitate the first
language structure at all, and the learner tries to oversimplify the target language
because of their limited exposure to the language. In such a case, the learners make
an effort to infer the principles behind the information to which they have been
uncovered and may create theories that compare neither to the primary language
nor the target one (Richards, 1974).
2.1.5 Studies on errors in writing
A study by Krishnasamy (2015) highlights that the Malay language has no time
marker (i.e. telah) as presented by verb+ ‘ed/ied (for regular past tense) and irregular
verbs in English. In her analysis of twenty-eight Diploma students, she found that
tenses are the most common types of errors that the students made. The second
common error is in the use of the verb, and the noun is the third common error made
by the students.
In a study done by Abas (2004), rural secondary school students in Kuala Muda
Yan District made errors mostly in Simple Present Tense by 50.36 %. This finding is
taken from the test result of a high-level group. The second most common error is in
Simple Past Tense, it carries 48.75%. The least error made by the students is in Future
Tense (35.59%). Meanwhile, intermediate students made most errors in Simple Past
Tense (71.67%), followed by Future Tense (69.64%) and the least errors they made
are in Simple Present Tense (52.63%).
Punctuation errors are one of the most common errors in English autobiographies
written by 15 male students at UAE University (Al Murshidi, 2014). There were 134
errors in punctuation. The students made the most errors in capitalization. Other than
capitalization, errors are also made by the students in the misuse of comma, colon, and
semicolon. Another study done in Punjab showed that sixty college students made
errors mostly in punctuation, and it is due to ignorance (Khan & Khan, 2016).
Botley and Dillah (2016) researched spelling errors in argumentative writing
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 443
made by university students in three public universities in Sarawak and Sabah.
Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island and is bordered by the Malaysian state
of Sabah to the northeast, Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion of Borneo) to the south,
and Brunei in the north. They have discovered that 1018 spelling errors were made by
the Degree students, and 867 errors were made by the Diploma students. This study
applies Computer-aided Error Analysis (CEA) which is able to analyse very large
quantity of data kept digitally in a computer corpus. Words misspelled are like
‘abbuse’, ‘entertaintment’, ‘vacum’, and ‘frobidden’. They should be spelled ‘abuse’,’
entertainment’, ‘vacuum’, and ‘forbidden’. According to Botley and Dillah (2016, p.
80), these errors are due to “interlingual misencodings lead to spelling errors that can
be linked back to the learner’s first language”.
A research conducted among Danish upper secondary students in examining
errors in vocabulary has revealed that they have very limited receptive vocabulary
knowledge. According to the researchers, students have yet to master 2000 words
despite learning English for more than ten years. Misspelling, word coinage, and
borrowing are considered as types of vocabulary errors in this study (Henriksen &
Danelund, 2015).
2.2 Students’ Difficulties in Writing
A well-written essay with appropriate content, vocabulary, correct spelling,
grammar, and punctuation is to be the solution to students’ writing problems (Tse,
2014). The process of writing a composition takes time into consideration. In the
classroom context, students have time to carefully start with the introduction, to take
complete the body part of a composition as well as time to make errors, and then to
correct them. When looking at a piece of writing, teachers need some time to give
feedback to grammatical errors as well as to content and organization (DeLuca &
Bellara, 2013).
Students are always in a situation where they know how to construct sentences,
but they often encounter difficulties during the writing process. These problems
originate from language teachers’ traditional style of teaching grammar and a lack of
practice on students’ part (Nyang’au, 2014). Students rarely show the development of
writing and its strategies that can assist them to be worthy writers. Moreover, teachers
may have a lack of thought on their students’ writing strategies and techniques.
Therefore, English teachers must recognise their students’ writing strategies in their
writing works (Maarof & Murat, 2013).
According to Ghabool and Kashef (2012), there is an emphasis on students who
have problems in writing in which they may struggle in one or more features of writing
skills for example the correct use of grammar. They should be having knowledge of
grammar as it is vital for them to possess the writing skill (Krishnasamy, 2015, p. 3).
Such difficulty in writing needs is acknowledged and identified by both students and
teachers so that students’ writing can be improved. In addition, their writing might
allow them to analyse whether what they have written is grammatical or not. The skills
of writing should consider good sentence structures and avoid making errors (Sorg,
2014).
444 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
3. METHODS
3.1 Population and Sample
The targeted population of this research was the rural pupils’ in Malaysian rural
schools. The two schools that participated in this study were Sekolah Kebangsaan
Kampong X and Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung Y in Kerian, Perak. The names of
schools are not the real names. Sekolah Kebangsaan refers to national schools and
kampung is a village if it were translated into the Malay language. All pupils were
Malays. This study comprised 44 pupils of Primary 5. Nineteen of them were from
Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung X and 25 pupils were from Sekolah Kebangsaan
Kampung Y. Purposive sampling was occupied in this research to collect the data from
a specific population, namely Primary 5 pupils, aged 11, to provide the researchers
with the information required.
3.2 Instrument and Data Collection
Words and pictures presented in the written task, which is the main instrument
of this research, were applicable to directly lead the researcher to what should be
learned about a phenomenon. Text description and the pupil participants involved were
highlighted in this research. All 19 transcripts of the essays were collected after the
English language lesson ended. The number of transcripts was based on the Primary 5
enrolment of pupils in a class. There was only one class for Primary 5 in Sekolah
Kebangsaan Kampung X. The transcripts were marked later by a teacher appointed by
the first researcher and the first researcher herself. The same procedure was done in
another school, Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung Y, where there was also one class
represented for Primary 5, where 25 transcripts were gathered and graded by an
English teacher as appointed by the school. A marking scheme or UPSR rubric with
bands and descriptors was provided by the researcher for the markers to check the
errors and put the errors into suitable bands and marks (see Appendix B).
The identification of errors was tabulated. Examining the various kinds of
grammatical errors was on the basis of the most frequent ones. The highest number of
grammatical errors was categorized for example under the use of Tense. Tense was
located under a few sub-categories such as Simple Present Tense, Simple Past Tense,
and other tenses if discovered. In addition, the errors were also found in spelling,
punctuation, and language use.
This study used content analysis to analyse the pupils’ writing. Crowley and
Delfico (1996) suggest that researchers can use content analysis of video, film, and
other forms of recorded information to report their subject matter. However, this study
was persistent on analysing words (as errors) based on the pupils’ writing. The initial
and the final stages of the analysis comprised reading the written transcripts in their
verbatim form for more than two times, calculating and recalculating the errors’
frequency regarding respective categories before placing the ranks of the error
committed by the pupils.
This content analysis helped make this research method to be systematic for
analysing textual information prepared in a form of pupils’ writing in an orderly
manner which permitted researchers and teachers as evaluators to make an
interpretation about that information. The benefit of having content analysis in this
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 445
study, according to Crowley and Delfico (1996) is that researchers might leave out
important details found in their research, intentionally or unintentionally, but the
transcripts make the complete record available to them all the time they need to refer
to. Therefore, the element of bias could be minimized during data collection.
4. RESULTS
The main objective of this study was to analyse pupils’ errors and difficulties in
writing regarding four areas namely tense, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. This
result presented the analysis of data derived from pupils’ written transcripts used in
this study. The data was presented in accordance with the research questions in order
to provide findings and explanations with regards to the research objectives. Data
analysis and findings of the errors were divided into subsections according to the areas
of errors. For Error Analysis (EA), the descriptions of the results obtained were
presented together with the tables and figures showing the total number of errors
committed and also the number of respondents committing the errors. Descriptions of
the data derived from the EA were followed by interpretations and explanations about
respondents’ errors and causes or sources of errors that lead to pupils making errors in
their writing.
In the guided written task, respondents were instructed to write a story. They
needed to write between 80 to 100 words. A set of 2017 UPSR Questions that consisted
of three pictures and nine given words, was given to each respondent to complete.
4.1 Schools Involved and Errors Made
Table 1 shows the schools involved and the types of errors made by the pupils.
Table 1. Schools involved and errors made.
The findings in Table 1 clearly show that pupils were weak in using the correct
tense. The second highest error making was punctuation. Furthermore, the third error
committed was vocabulary and followed by spelling. As a whole, the errors committed
to writing among these rural primary school pupils demonstrate that their performance
in writing was average and low for certain pupils. It is shown by the overall errors
made by the pupils, which is 395 errors.
In brief, the finding shows that the respondents’ grasp of using the correct tense
in writing was not that stable. They made an effort to construct sentences on their own
without any help from their teacher or researcher. The pupils struggled to write
complete sentences and added some words to make their story meaningful. They did
not have to make any corrections after their essay was marked by teachers. Before the
research was conducted, the pupils relied heavily on their teacher to write, and hardly
Name of school Types of Error (Frequency) Total of All
Types of Errors Tense Spelling Punctuation Vocabulary
1. Sekolah Kebangsaan
Kampong X
57 39 45 46 187
2. Sekolah Kebangsaan
Kampong Y
63 42 66 37 208
Total 120 81 111 83 395
446 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
any effort involved. They were taught and discussed on any topic of writing and the
process moved smoothly as planned by their teacher. The findings prove that errors
are a threat in writing and the errors become a problem if the pupils are not taught
properly on using the correct tenses in writing especially in Section C where they need
to do it carefully as it carries 25 marks of the overall score for writing paper. Every
pupil who made errors was represented without names but the letter ‘P’ was put for
‘Pupil’ and the number of their transcript for reference.
4.2 Errors Made and Their Categories: Tense
All the errors in the tense presented in Table 2 were taken from the pupils’
written transcript.
Table 2. Errors related to tense. No. Errors
1 Last school holiday, I and my family go to….
2 My father taked time….
3 ...hotel staff give a keys
4 I go to the market...
5 ….and i buy many...
6 ...my parents go to Cameroon highlands…
7 My father take a photos.
8 We to take the photos.
9 We are very happy…
10 My father open the room.
In this section, all the errors in tense involved the Simple Present Tense, the use
of the verb to be ‘is’ and ‘are’, the use of Simple Past Tense for regular and irregular
verbs, and the addition of verb to be ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘was’ or ‘were’ to the Simple Past
Tense verbs.
4.2.1 Errors in tense involving the Simple Present Tense
Analysing the pupils’ writing from the written task, errors were mostly found in
the use of the Simple Present Tense as they tended to replace the verb in the Simple
Past Tense with the verb in the Simple Present Tense. The verbs like ‘go’, ‘give’, ‘buy’,
‘take’, ‘open’, ‘hope’, ‘accept’, ‘enter’, ‘stay’, ‘sleep’, ‘get’, ‘pay’, ‘hear’ and ‘want’
were used by the pupils from the two rural schools although sometimes the time frame
was mentioned. It was found that the pupils apparently used the verb stem without
observing the rules of Subject-Verb agreement. The following are some examples
taken from the transcript.
a) “Last school holiday, I and my family go to….” (P33, line 1)
b) “En. Razik give keys room.” (P21, line 6)
c) “…and I buy many…” (P3, line 6)
d) “I and my family take a photo.” (P9, line 11)
The verbs ‘go’, ‘give’, ‘buy’ and ‘take’ should be changed to ‘went’, ‘gave’,
‘bought’, and ‘took’ to make all the above sentences correct in the use of tense. There
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 447
are examples made by the pupils in which they combined the Simple Present Tense
and the Simple Past Tense in a sentence. They are as follows: e) “After they get a rest, they went to tea plantation.” (P22, line 8)
f) “We reached at hotel and take the keys…” (P29, line 2)
g) “I and family enjoyed to tea plantation and my father take ...” (P37, line 10)
4.2.2 The use of the verb to be ‘is’ and ‘are’
The pupils could construct complete sentences for their task. Nevertheless, their
wrong use of the verb to be ‘is’ and ‘are’, produced deviations to their writing.
Examples are presented below:
h) “We are happy and my friend is good….” (P7, line 8)
i) “That is so (e)interesting experience for my family.” (P30, line 12)
j) “We is very comfortable…” (P21, line 6)
The first example is wrong as the pupil made use of ‘are’ instead of ‘were’. The
second example stresses on ‘is’ when it should be ‘was’. The same pattern of errors
made by the third pupil, where she did not observe the Subject-Verb Agreement rules
as Plural noun ‘We’ should agree with its verb ‘are’. However, in this study, the pupil
has wrongly used the verb as it should be “We were...”.
4.2.3 The use of Simple Past Tense for regular and irregular verbs
When constructing sentences, the Primary 5 pupils have a tendency to use the
verbs in the Simple Past Tense but the change of the verbs for regular and irregular
verbs in Past Tense made them commit the errors as follows. The subsequent errors
are in:
k) “Ali’s father heared a noise and shocked.” (P1, line 6)
l) “My father taked time three hours.” (P3, line 2)
‘Heared’ is a regular verb. The pupils just need to change it into ‘heard’ to make
perfect in the use of the Simple Past Tense. However, ‘taked’ is an irregular verb. It
does not follow other regular verbs rules where ‘d’, ‘ed’, ‘ied’ can be added. The
correct word is ‘took’.
4.2.4 The addition of verb to-be ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘was’ or ‘were’ to the Simple Past Tense
verbs
The next error made is, adding verb to-be to another verb especially to the Simple
Past Tense verb was also discovered in this study. The pupils’ sentences related to this
error are as the following.
m) “When we was reached to the hotel, the hotel staff gave my father...” (P23, line 4)
n) “We is enjoyed.” (P21, line 9)
o) “My father is drove...” and “We are went…” (P44, line 2)
448 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
All the verbs to-be are not needed in all the examples given. The addition of the
verbs is considered major errors committed as two verbs are placed closely in one
sentence and these errors are committed by some pupils repeatedly.
4.3 Errors Made and Their Categories: Spelling
The followings are the spelling errors and their explanation.
4.3.1 Cameron Highlands
The spelling errors made by the pupils are ‘Cemron Highland’, ‘Cameroon
highlands’, ‘Cameron Higlands’, ‘Camera Highlend’, ‘Cameron Hingland’, and
‘Cameron Hirlon’. This famous place in Pahang was stated in the question but it was
written using capital letters.
4.3.2 interesting
The deviant spelling of the above word is linked to the misuse of vowel for
instance ‘enteresting’ and ‘intresting’. The vowels ‘i’ and ‘e’ were used
interchangeably and wrongly. However, the errors in ‘instresting’ and ‘interresting’
are on the missing of ‘e’ and the adding of ‘s’ and ‘r’, respectively.
4.3.3 tea plantation
The error made by the pupil is on the word ‘plantation’. The word was written
as ‘plantanion’ and ‘planatation’. Nobody misspelled the word ‘tea’ which has one
syllable only. Both words (tea plantation) were shown in the question distributed to
them.
4.3.4 reached
There was an element of omission and addition in spelling the above word. The
terms were given by Botley and Dillah (2016) in their study on spelling errors made
by university students in Sabah and Sarawak. The first element is shown in ‘reched’
and addition in ‘reachead’.
4.4 Errors Made and Their Categories: Punctuation
Upon identifying errors in punctuation, it is discovered that there were three parts
of errors related to punctuation. They are errors in the use of capitalization, errors in
the use of a comma, and errors in the use of period. The number of errors made by the
pupils is displayed in the following table.
Table 3. Errors related to punctuation. No. Punctuation Error Repetition of Error
1 Capitalization 66
2 Comma 22
3 Period 30
Total 118
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 449
Table 3 presents all errors related to punctuation with all the categories namely
capitalization, comma, and period. Distribution of punctuation errors based on
categories as adapted from Al Murshidi (2014) makes it easy for analysis and
explanation. Errors have been analysed and are found in the pupils’ written transcripts
and the schoolwork. Among all categories, errors in capitalization were the highest
followed by period and comma as the lowest frequency of error related to punctuation.
4.4 Errors Made and Their Categories: Vocabulary
The errors were analysed for vocabulary error to find deviations in the pupils’
choice of words for adjective, verb, preposition, and conjunction. It can be clearly seen
from examples presented on every part taken from the pupils’ writing. This type of
error, although ungrammatical, is part of errors made by Malaysian rural primary
school pupils in the Kerian district, and it is also part of items that are marked in the
UPSR rubric (see Appendix B).
4.4.1 Adjective
p) “My family was interesting the tea plantation.”
The wrong use of ‘interesting’ in the sentence affects the whole meaning.
4.4.2 Preposition
q) “The father reached in the hotel...”
r) “He drove after three hours.”
The change of ‘in’ and ‘after’ could be made but it is not discussed here as it is
only making assumptions.
4.4.3 Conjunction
s) “I bought a strawberry for my friend and a gift.”
This error may not be an error if it is spoken. However, the pupil has made the
mis-orderly phrase “and a gift” (conjunction) that makes the whole sentence to have
an error in their writing.
5. DISCUSSION
The research findings have revealed that most pupils had difficulty in using the
correct tense in English writing. Even though it cannot be generalized to all primary
school pupils studying in rural areas, the highest number of frequent errors made in
tense portrays that these pupils were weak in tense particularly in the Simple Past
Tense. The transformation of verb stem, the term given by Richards (1974), or root
word, into the verb in the past form, requires them to follow the rules of regular and
irregular verbs. Repeated use of the Simple Present Tense in writing a story shows that
450 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
the pupils did not comprehend the appropriate tense to be used when writing about
something in the past.
This finding is similar to a study conducted by Krishnasamy (2015) on twenty-
eight Diploma students. She found that Tenses are the most common types of errors
that the students made. This research has displayed that tense is the highest error made
by Malaysian rural primary school pupils referring to Table 1. Abas (2004) has also
discovered that The Simple Present Tense and The Simple Past Tense have the highest
and the second-highest number of errors, respectively made by secondary school
students in Kedah. Both research studies show that every student made at least one
error in tense(s) in their writing by the approximated mean.
However, Krishnasamy’s (2015) and Abas’s (2004) results were based upon the
data from Diploma students and secondary school students, respectively, who might
be exposed to English more than the rural primary school pupils as in this study.
Maturity in writing, learning strategies received from teachers and pupils’ interests in
English should also be taken into consideration. Until recently, there is little interest
from language scholars or educators to investigate errors in writing made by rural
primary school pupils (Ien et al. 2017). The highest number of errors in tense made by
students and pupils in Krishnasamy’s (2015), Abas’s (2004) and this present research
could possibly become the reason for further research. If possible, something should
be done to overcome this problem in this research since the pupils are still at the
primary level of education.
The second major error made by the pupils was punctuation. The errors were in
the use of comma, period, and capitalization which is similar to the pupils’ first
language (Malay language) that also applies the same rule for punctuation (tanda baca
in Malay). Furthermore, the vocabulary was another error made by the rural pupils in
writing. The vocabulary limitation hindered them from writing using suitable words
and lead them to use alternative words instead. Then there us spelling, the least error
made by the pupils in writing. This error can also be highlighted because the findings
show that these primary school pupils tended to make spelling errors because they
spelled certain words according to how they pronounce them. Also, there were two
misspelled words which are connected to mother tongue interference.
The causes and sources of error found in this study were both interlingual and
intralingual errors. As second language learners, the rural pupils are exposed to two
languages that make them bilingual. In the process of learning the second language,
they tended to mix, combine, misuse, or apply both rules and linguistic comprehension
of the languages into writing without realizing it. Interference from the mother tongue
is the root of their writing difficulty. In addition, little exposure of the new language
is the factor that pulls the mother tongue’s rule into the new language rule and binds
English and Malay languages together (Maros et al. 2017).
5.1 Research Implications
The study findings have recommended some implications related to
policymakers and practitioners for their teaching practice. These suggestions are
significant to those who are closely linked to the pupils particularly to English teachers.
The implications are as follows.
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 451
5.1.1 Implications for policymakers
The writing problem faced by the rural primary pupils needs to be addressed to
the policymakers as State Education Department (JPN) and District Education Office
(PPD) in order to help other rural English educators in solving the similar problem of
having lower-competency English learners with their sentence and essay writing
problems. The use of English textbooks and syllabus might have an impact on pupils’
writing if both are not functioning as they are. In addition, teachers and pupils might
refer to the resources, and any faulty or flaws from them should be discussed and
amended according to the suitability of teaching and learning of writing in the
classroom. Teachers’ training and effective teaching of writing workshops might be
less of help to the teachers without frequent observation and post-mortem from the
abovementioned policymakers. Apart from that, training on marking English Writing
paper is seen necessary for young and new English teachers so that new and fresh ideas
could be exchanged between both parties, teachers, and education officers.
5.1.2 Implications for practice
a. To teachers
The main aim of this study is to help the rural primary school pupils to
acknowledge the errors they made in writing. In relation to this, English teachers play
a vital role in identifying the areas of difficulty that the pupils are facing in writing
especially when they construct sentences to form a meaningful story. Teachers as
practitioners will be able to reckon the nature of the learner’s errors in the language
their pupils are learning and detect the areas they have to improve on. Error analysis
is a way for teachers to locate learning problems. As this study looks into the four areas
of errors, the difficulty it gives to pupils’ writing has revealed the reason why they
cannot perform well in the examination.
Errors in tense prove that pupils are still confused with the grammar rules
whereas punctuation errors show their weakness in the mechanics of writing.
Moreover, spelling is the area where their writing is less helpful whereas vocabulary
errors produce the ideas to the readers that the pupils as writers do not comprehend the
exact meaning of the choice of words they use. As a result, the errors keep being
repeated without them having a chance to correct the errors. Teachers who teach any
particular errors committed by the pupils are not aware of the errors that allow them
to exist in their pupils’ writing.
The errors made give teachers clues about the kind of worksheet they have
assigned to the pupils before and whether they should improve on it, which depends
on the pupils’ level of proficiency. Their teaching techniques especially in teaching
writing may work on the pupils and vice versa. As for gender differences in making
errors, teachers may have little attention on errors made by both male and female pupils
while teaching them the areas of grammar they have had a lack of.
Preparing more worksheets on tense, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary
could not be ways to enhance their grammar understanding if teachers do not spot the
pupils’ errors first. Teachers who provide worksheets on identifying errors in sentences
for the pupils to work in a group or as homework would be overlooked on the pupils’
capability to construct sentences on their own and without assistance at home. Pairing
452 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
the pupils of the average level with the low level one might be helpful sometimes, but
it can be harmful if only one party works harder than the other.
b. To pupils
Making errors in all four categories shows the pupils’ difficulty in writing may
occur when their knowledge of grammar and language use of a second language is
limited. Analysing pupils’ errors is a tedious job. However, it is effective in
determining their level of proficiency in writing and measuring their progress in
understanding grammar and language use. Therefore, self-checking and peer checking
as what has been done as classroom practice can be less practical without full attention
from teachers. They can have a practice of identifying errors themselves and placing
them into correct categories of errors, but teachers’ guidance is also needed.
It is impacted by the pupils who are given a lot of writing practice either in school
or at home especially to those whose performance is low. Familiarising them with
guided writing may be helpful to them, but this might let them work without thinking
about main ideas and use correct grammar themselves. The pupils who need to be
given more stimuli for them to describe with or without helping words, just waste their
time looking at them if they are not provided with extra time and discussion with
friends and teachers. Pupils’ participation and engagement in different activities and
trying out new strategies to improve their writing e.g. keeping a journal, or doing a
task using a blog, Facebook, or any social media may be beneficial if the teacher does
weekly checking and observation.
6. CONCLUSION
Writing is a skill that needs to be developed by language learners. It is considered
difficult to learn especially by rural primary school pupils in Malaysia as English is
used neither in school nor at home. Encountering problems to organise ideas in
paragraphs, to observe coherence and cohesion, and to show linguistic competency
such as tense, punctuation, spelling, and vocabulary in writing hindered the pupils
from producing good quality of writing as they frequently made errors during the
writing process.
In line with that, the government has played its role through English programmes
to help English teachers facilitate pupils, especially in rural areas to enhance their
literacy and writing skill in English. This assists English teachers in grouping the
pupils with learning disabilities in order to have remedial sessions to bridge the
achievement gap between rural and urban pupils as stated in the Malaysian Education
Blueprint 2013-2025 (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2013).
Therefore, teachers have to work more on adjusting their teaching strategy to
deal with the pupils’ errors and provide as much worksheet as they can to solve the
problem. To conclude, though this study has revealed the pupils’ weakness in writing,
the root of this problem might be coming from many factors that have not been
investigated yet.
This research focused on Primary 5 pupils only because their writing might be
valid to be examined as they had gone through four years of learning English as a
second language at school. It is limited to only Primary 5 pupils because they are
H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 453
capable of showing the maturity in presenting ideas in writing, but making errors in
grammar and language use was not an exception. Again, they will not be presenting
the whole population of pupils studying in all rural areas in Malaysia.
Since this was a small-scale research study, the writing instruction chosen for
pupils to write was only to be restricted to instructions related to their experience and
things they were familiar with. Therefore, their extension of ideas and points cannot
be generalized to others who may receive different methods and techniques by their
language teachers. In addition, the pupils’ errors in writing may vary from one to
another as a result of their learning process and the influence by intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation and attitudes towards learning writing skills to achieve their teacher’s
target; to write well.
Future studies should focus on a larger sample size from different levels of
proficiency and different schools. Also, future researchers should take different levels
of English proficiency into account so that the result might be more solid and useful
to other teachers and pupils of diverse levels. It is also recommended that the duration
of the study could be extended to give ample time to the pupils and teachers to go
through the analysis process for the sake of getting more valid and reliable findings.
Generally, this study emphasizes errors in tense, spelling, punctuation, and
vocabulary. Perhaps for future research, researchers would focus on just one type of
error so that it would be more specific with the addition of many sources of data.
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H. Harun & M. K. K. Abdullah, Errors in writing made by Malaysian rural primary school pupils | 455
APPENDICES
Appendix A
English UPSR Question Paper (Section C)
456 | Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 438-456, 2020
Appendix B
Rubric for marking UPSR English Writing by Malaysian Examination Board. Bands Super
Excellent
Bands
Excellent
Band Good Band Satisfactory
Band Weak Band
Section C
(25 marks)
23-25 marks 18-22 marks 12-17 marks 5-11 marks 0-4 marks
Descriptors All ideas are
relevant and
well-
organized in
well-plotted
paragraphs.
Very
excellent and
proficient use
of the
language
throughout
with hardly
any error in
grammar and
structures.
Almost
perfect in
punctuation
and spelling
with a high
command of
vocabulary.
Most ideas
are relevant
and well-
organized in
sequenced
paragraphs.
Excellent use
of the
language
throughout
with a few
errors in
grammar and
structures.
A few errors
in punctuation
and spelling
and correct
use of
vocabulary.
Some ideas
are relevant
and organized
in
paragraph(s).
Proficient use
of the
language with
some errors in
both grammar
and
structures.
Some errors
in spelling
and
punctuation.
Vocabulary is
just sufficient.
Ideas are in
paragraph (s).
The use of
language is
just sufficient
with frequent
errors in
grammar and
structures.
Frequent
errors in
spelling and
punctuation.
Vocabulary is
barely
sufficient.
Most ideas
are in chunks
and almost
disorganized.
Poor use of
the language
with too
many
multiple
errors in
grammar and
structures.
Spelling and
punctuation
errors are
found
throughout.
Vocabulary
can hardly
convey any
meaning.
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